MEAT-TAX –
In Austria, as everywhere else, the Jewish communities imposed a tax on meat, the revenue from which was used for communal purposes. During the eighteenth century, however, the national government used this method of raising a...

ME'ATI, HA –
Family of translators which flourished at Rome in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.Nathan b. Eliezer ha-Me'ati: Earliest known member of the family; called the "Prince of Translators" and the "Italian Tibbonide"; lived in...

MECIA (MATTHEW) DE VILADESTES –
Jewish chartographer of Majorca at the beginning of the fifteenth century. He was the author of a map, dated 1413, formerly in the convent of Val de Cristo, near Segorbe, but now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. In it he...

MECKLENBURG –
Early Settlement. Territory in North Germany; bounded on the north by the Baltic Sea. Formerly it constituted one duchy, but since 1701 it has been divided into Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, forming two separate...

MEDALS –
Soon after the revival of the art of engraving medals, about the middle of the fifteenth century, a few Jewish specimens were struck in Italy, although the number was very small on account of the general oppression of the Jews...

MEDEBA –
A town east of the Dead Sea and a few miles south of Heshbon. It was wrested from the Moabites by Sihon, King of the Amorites (Num. xxi. 30); and after the conquest of Palestine it was assigned, together with the plain in which...

MEDIA –
In Bible. Ancient name of a country which is located south and west of the Caspian Sea, and is associated with events in Jewish history. The confines of Media anciently embraced territory corresponding roughly to the present...

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Mosaic Map of Palestine, Probably of the Fifth Century, Found at Medeba. (Plan of Jerusalem, Enlarged, in Upper Right-Hand Corner.)An agent that goes between; one who interposes between parties at variance; in particular, an...

MEDICINE –
In Bible and Talmud: The ancient Hebrew regarded health and disease as emanating from the same divine source. "I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal" (Deut. xxxii. 39), said the Lord through His servant Moses; and...

MEDINA –
Second sacred city of Islam; situated in the Hijaz in Arabia, about 250 miles north of Mecca. It is celebrated as the place to which the Hegira (Mohammed's flight from Mecca) was directed, and as the capital and burial-place of...

MEDINA –
Prominent Jewish family, members of which lived during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries chiefly in Turkey and Egypt. Most probably it took its name from one of the two Spanish cities named Medina.The following is a...

MEDINA, SIR SOLOMON DE –
English army contractor about 1711. He was a wealthy Jew who went to England with William III., and who attained some notoriety by his extensive dealings with the English government of his day. "The Jew Medina," as he was...

MEDINI, ḤAYYIM HEZEKIAH –
Palestinian rabbinical writer; born at Jerusalem 1833; son of Rabbi Raphael Eliahu Medini. At the age of nineteen, on completing his studies in his native city, he received the rabbinical diploma. He then went to Constantinople,...

MEGIDDO –
Capital of one of the Canaanitish kings conquered by Joshua; assigned to Manasseh (Josh. xii. 21, xvii. 11; I Chron. vii. 29). Its Canaanitish inhabitants were only put to tribute, not driven out (Josh. xvii. 12-13; Judges i....

MEGILLAH –
Name of a treatise in the Mishnah and in the Tosefta, as well as in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. It is the tenth treatise in the mishnaic order Mo'ed, and includes four chapters, containing thirty-three paragraphs in...

MEGILLAT SETARIM –
Name of a roll supposed to have been found in the bet ha-midrash of R. Ḥiyya, and which contained halakot recorded by him. Three passages from it, which are maxims of R. Ise b. Judah, are quoted by Abba Arika in the Talmud...

MEGILLAT TA'ANIT –
A chronicle which enumerates thirty-five eventful days on which the Jewish nation either performed glorious deeds or witnessed joyful events. These days were celebrated as feast-days. Public mourning was forbidden on fourteen of...

MEGILLAT YUḤASIN –
A lost work to which several references are made in the Talmud and Mishnah. In Yeb. 49b Ben 'Azzai, in support of a point in law, says: "I found a 'Megillat Yuḥasin' in Jerusalem wherein it was written that . . . is a bastard...